1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a gas lighter, and, more particularly, to a gas lighter in which the structure for rotating rotary ignition means, such as a rotary file, is improved, and which is easy to manufacture and can easily be designed compact with an improved ignition efficiency.
2. Description of the Related Art
A conventional flint type gas lighter is designed as follows. The gas lighter has a lighter body with a gas injection nozzle provided at the upper portion of the lighter body, and a rotary file which has a file face on its outer surface and is rotatably attached at the upper portion of the lighter body. A flint is placed inside the lighter body and is urged by a spring to elastically abut on the rotary file. An actuator for rotating the rotary file is attached to the upper portion of the lighter body. One side of the rotary file is provided with segment portions that are equally divided (e.g., by five), with an engage step portion formed in each segment portion. A spring piece having engage pawls, which are detachably engaged with the engage step portions of the segment portions, is provided on the actuator side.
To use the gas lighter with the above structure, first, the actuator is pressed down. The depression of the actuator causes the engage pawls of the spring piece to engage the engage step portion of any one of the segment portions, thus rotating the rotary file. As the rotary file rotates, it rubs against the flint that is pressed against the file face to make sparks. The sparks ignite gas injected from the nozzle.
As mentioned above, the structure for rotating the rotary file in the conventional gas lighter requires that the segment portions be formed on one side of the rotary file with the engage step portion formed on each segment portion and that the spring piece having the engage pawls be provided on the actuator side. It is however difficult to form the segment portions. In manufacturing the rotary file, for example, a metal wire is cut to a predetermined length and the cut wire pieces are pressed into a mold to be cast. To provide the mentioned segment portions then, it is necessary to form the equivalent shapes in the mold. The processing of the rotary file including the preparation of such a mold is very difficult. The production of the conventional gas lighter therefore needs many steps, resulting in a higher manufacturing cost.
Further, the number of segment portions is limited to about five because the shape of the aforementioned mold should become complex to ensure finer segmentation. With the equal segmentation into about five portions, the rotational angle for rotating a single segment portion becomes large so that the amount of depression of the actuator should be increased accordingly. This lowers the ignition efficiency. To reduce the depression amount of the actuator, the number of segment portions should be increased. In this case, again, the shape of the mold becomes complicated.